“Even when I’m adding your top shelf whiskey to a hot chocolate?”
“Might have to think about that one,” he said with a laugh, and then kissed me. It was more than just a long, slow, and utterly delicious exploration. It was a promise of what was to come. Of what lay ahead for us. Not just tonight, but in the months and years and maybe even decades ahead.
A throat was cleared behind him.
“Ginny,” I said with a soft groan. “Your timing sucks.”
“Doesn’t it just,” she said cheerfully. “But hey, you’ve plenty of time later tonight to get hot and heavy. Mo’s ready.”
I sighed and pulled back. Luc swung around and offered me his arm. “Allow this soldier the privilege of escorting his queen.”
I smiled and tucked my arm through his. Numerous people had called me “queen” over the past week—even the true queen had acknowledged my presence, while making it abundantly clear my line had forgone any claim to the English throne long ago—but his usage was the only one that really meant a damn.
I was, and forever would be, his queen.
We followed Ginny back up the path and into the stone monolith circle that surrounded the newly resurrected King’s Stone.
A dozen men and women stood around the stone, their expressions so solemn I had to bite back the instinctive need to laugh. Damn it, where were these people when we were struggling to uncover information about Elysian? Why did it take Max’s failed coup for them to realize the past was as important as the future and that there were some stories and artifacts that should never be forgotten?
Of course, they wouldn’t be now. I’d make damn sure of that.
I took a deep breath and then slipped my arm from Luc’s and moved through the circle to the King’s Stone. Mia gave me a quick thumbs-up from the other side of the rock, and Barney nudged her lightly with his shoulder as he made a comment too soft for me to hear. From the rather dramatic roll of her eyes, I gathered it had been something about decorum being necessary in what he deemed a solemn occasion.
I couldn’t help grinning and returning the gesture. Bugger decorum.
I stopped in front of Mo. She scanned me critically, then nodded, just the once. She, like me, was still recovering from everything that had happened in the farmhouse. We could—and had—healed each other, but only to a point. There were some wounds and some energies that simply needed time.
She raised the elaborately decorated sword and offered her to me. The steel was cold and dead in my grip, the total opposite of Elysian, which remained strapped across my back, but hidden in the gray. We still had a long journey ahead of us both before she could be returned to the concealed depths of the lake on Bodmin Moor.
I intended to close the gates.
Every single one of them.
And while I knew it would take time and the locks would not hold forever—just as the main gate never had—it would give us time to develop a more usable means of confronting and defeating Darkside.
What happened in London, and to a lesser extent here in Ainslyn, must never be allowed to happen again. Even if another heir went rogue and claimed the true sword.
I looked up at the King’s Stone. Mo had already placed and lit the short white candles necessary for the protection blessing I’d perform once the sword had been resheathed. While it was traditionally done in the first dawn of the new year, in drawing the sword, Max had shattered its protections.
I took a steadying breath, then shoved my free hand into the hollow smoothed by countless of my ancestors and stepped up onto the rock. The faded warning etched into the stone had not been replaced or sharpened. To be honest, neither Mo nor I saw the need. If was better for all if the public thought this sword was the real deal; it would deter those who might otherwise seek Elysian once she’d been returned to her watery resting place. As long as those who truly mattered—the Blackbirds and the High Council—knew the truth, there wouldn’t be a repeat of the mess we’d found ourselves in.
As the dusk settled in, I raised the fake sword to the blood-painted sky. The final rays of the day struck her hilt and, as the golden rose slowly unfurled, I thrust the blade deep into the heart of the stone. Then I raised the vials of sanctified water and slowly moved around the sword’s base, calling on the power of the sun and the moon to protect the blade through the upcoming year, to keep it safe from darkness and all else who might wish her harm. As the words ran across the silence, a force sharper and more ethereal than any mere spell rose. I understood what that force was now—it was the power of the earth and the sky.
A shaft of golden light shot from the unfurled center of the rose and fell around the stone, melding first into the blessing and then into the rock. The golden light died, and the rose curled in on itself again.
The sword was safe for another year.
A soft murmur rose from the councilors gathered below, and the curiosity in their expressions suggested they had questions they wanted to ask. Thankfully, we’d expected this to happen, and Ginny, Mia, and Barney firmly ushered them away with a quick “later.”
I jumped down from the rock, then stepped into Mo’s waiting arms and hugged her fiercely. She didn’t say anything. Not for several minutes. Then she pulled back, caught my face, and kissed my forehead.
“Now go fuck the hell out of that man of yours. Everything else can wait.”
I burst out laughing, even as Luc said, “That sounds like a damn fine plan to me.”
“I dare say it would, Blackbird. But remember, I want grandbairns. Lots and lots of grandbairns to fill my twilight years with love and laughter. And yes, I already have two I will love and cherish, but I want a brood.”
“Define what you mean by brood,” I said, voice dry, “because while I may indeed have a very long lifespan, I’m not spending the next fifty years popping out kids for you to spoil rotten.”
She pursed her lips, her eyes merry as she pretended to consider the question. “A good even dozen should do. I’ve already two, so that leaves ten.”
Luc laughed and caught my hand. “I’m not sure either of us are interested in a brood that big, but I will promise we’ll devote every possible waking moment to perfecting the act of child making.”
“Excellent.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Off you go then. I don’t expect to see you for at least three days. Anything less, I’ll consider a dereliction of duty.”
“Never let it be said a Blackbird is guilty of such a crime,” he said, voice solemn.
Then with another laugh, he raced me down the path, over the bridge, and onto his motorbike. But we didn’t journey all the way down to his manor house in Somerset.
Instead, we stopped in a quaint little B&B on the outskirts of Worcester and did exactly what Mo had commanded.
She didn’t get her grandbairns. Not that year. Not for several years.
But she did get them.
Six, in fact.
Also by Keri Arthur
in series order
Crown of Shadows (Relic Hunters, 1)
Blackbird Rising (The Witch King’s Crown, 1)
Blackbird Broken (The Witch King’s Crown, 2)
Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King’s Crown, 3)